Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is becoming more and more prevalent and preferred by patients. This is because MIS typically results in faster patient recovery times and shorter hospital stays, and oftentimes the procedure can be done on an outpatient basis. MIS can be in the form of endoscopic, mini-incision, robotic, or natural orifice surgery, and thus is sometimes referred to as no-scar, low-scar, bandage, keyhole, or pinhole surgery. To perform MIS the surgeon uses a variety of instruments to cut, coagulate, seal, desiccate, manipulate, denature, or otherwise work on tissue. Modern technology has effectively shrunken down the size of these devices so that they can fit through very small openings in the skin. So surgeons can insert these instruments through very small openings in the skin to devascularize and dissect a relatively large mass (such as a tumor) within the patient's body. But a problem arises when that mass will not fit through the small openings in the skin. Many skilled surgeons don't do MIS in some cases because extraction of the tissue from the patient's body would necessitate a big incision or it would take too long to de-bulk and remove the tissue.
There are known devices that are designed to de-bulk large pieces of tissue in order to remove the tissue once it is freed from the patient's body. These devices are commonly referred to as “morcellators.” The first generation of morcellators consisted of a grasper with a jaw-like apparatus at the end of it. The surgeon would take small bites out of the tissue until it was totally removed.
The second (and current) generation of morcellators include a motorized tubular knife that is inserted through an opening in the body. The surgeon uses a separate instrument that inserts through the tubular knife to grab tissue and pull in into engagement with the knife, which then cuts off strips of the tissue that are then pulled through the tubular knife and discarded. This process is repeated numerous times until the entire mass of tissue is removed. But this design has many drawbacks. First of all, the motorized tubular knife is exposed so that it can engage and de-bulk the tissue, but the exposed knife can also contact and cause unintentional damage to surrounding tissue resulting in injury, hospitalization, and/or death. In addition, the tissue removal rate is dependent on the composition and stability of the tissue, the skill of the physician, the fatigue and frustration of the physician (tissue removal is typically the last step in the procedure before closing the patient), etc. Current morcellators have maximum tissue removal rates believed to be in the neighborhood of about 40-60 grams per minute. Furthermore, to effectively and safely use these devices an inert, nontoxic gas (such as carbon dioxide) must be insufflated into a body cavity to expand the cavity sufficiently to provide increased workroom and better visualization during surgery. Moreover, although current morcellating devices don't necessarily require the use of an assistant during the surgery, many surgeons find the use of the devices to be so tiresome and cumbersome that they end up using an assistant anyway.
Accordingly, it can be seen that needs exist for improvements in morcellating and removing tissue from the human body. It is to the provision of solutions meeting these and other needs that the present invention is primarily directed.